Pembina Pipeline Corp., along with partners Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management, have approved the establishment of the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a natural gas facility designed to supply power to a data center client. The project is estimated to cost $4.6 billion and will involve the construction of a 932-megawatt plant in Sturgeon County, situated within Alberta’s Industrial Heartland area to the north of Edmonton. Operations are slated to commence in the latter part of 2030, with provisions in place for potential future capacity expansion.
The demand for data centers, which house the necessary computer infrastructure to support various technological applications, has surged in tandem with the rise of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. However, the specific identity of the data center client being served by the project has not been disclosed by the province or the involved companies.
Alberta has been actively wooing large-scale developers like Meta and Google to establish operations within the region. Nonetheless, the existing electricity grid lacks the capacity to accommodate multiple such projects, prompting a focus on initiatives where entities either construct or secure their own power generation capabilities.
Premier Danielle Smith highlighted the Greenlight Electricity Centre as a prime illustration of this strategic approach during a recent press briefing. She emphasized that by requiring data centers to self-generate power and cover relevant infrastructure costs, the framework is structured to alleviate transmission expenses for Alberta’s utility consumers.
Pembina CEO Scott Burrows commended Alberta’s commitment to fostering competitiveness, attracting investments, and fostering energy projects, which have facilitated the progression of ventures like the Greenlight Electricity Centre. This initiative is positioned to cater to the substantial power requirements of Alberta’s large-scale data centers while establishing the essential infrastructure to support the burgeoning industry.
While concerns have been raised in certain Canadian and U.S. communities regarding pollution and noise stemming from data center developments, particularly those incorporating gas plant elements, Premier Smith noted that the Greenlight project’s location has a long history of accommodating industrial activities with community acceptance.
The Pembina Institute, an independent clean-energy think tank, pointed out that the Greenlight Energy Centre missed an opportunity to utilize lower-cost renewable energy sources as the expenses associated with gas-fired power escalate. The Institute’s electricity program director, David Pickup, underscored the limitations of Alberta’s current ‘bring your own generation’ policies for data centers, emphasizing the need for a diversified energy mix to mitigate environmental impacts and cost concerns linked to gas-fired power.